Corporate personnel of retail and other consumer businesses may visit their different store locations for a variety of reasons. For example, in-store visits are sometimes made to determine store cleanliness, to determine whether shelves are appropriately stocked, to determine parking lot cleanliness and safety, and to review store operations, such as guest services and asset protection processes, etc. In-store visits may also be used for training purposes, such as to train personnel at a particular store, e.g., on how to maintain and operate the store's video monitoring systems.
In-store visits typically involve multiple people physically traveling to one or more stores. For example, a field team made up of various experts in different areas of store operations may travel together to a store to evaluate the store and to provide feedback or other recommendations for store improvements. These recommendations may include improvements in cleanliness, average wait times, display of merchandise, stock levels, and the like.
Follow-up in-store visits may also be used to determine whether recommendations made during a previous visit have been acted upon. For example, during an initial in-store visit, a corporate representative may recommend that the store manager set up a particular display in a different manner that may be more likely to lead to customer purchases. On a follow-up visit a couple of weeks later, the corporate representative may check to make sure that the display had been appropriately changed.
Video monitoring systems may be used to monitor retail locations for various purposes. In particular, video monitoring systems may be used to monitor different locations within the interiors of a retail store, such as high-traffic aisles, security-sensitive areas, and the like. Video monitoring systems may also be used to monitor locations at the exteriors of a retail store, such as parking lots, loading docks, external doors, etc.